


Upended

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Accidental Bonding, Babysitting, Comedy of Errors, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Found Family, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28019064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: A widowed mother finds a dead body on her cow.Or; Zagreus makes a deal with Chaos, becomes mortal for a few months, ends up on a barren farm, takes care of a baby, learns the virtues of manure, tries goat cheese for the first time, gets in a fight with a bird, invents a new breakfast food, catches a cold, barters for pottery, learns a song about ducks, eats a hallucinogenic plant (on accident), and finds out what the fuss is about being human.
Relationships: Megaera/Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Megaera/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 112





	Upended

**Author's Note:**

> Or; One godling, one death incarnate, one Fury and a baby.
> 
> (I know there are plenty of Zagreus as a mortal fics, but this one got stuck in my head as my escapist fantasy during retail work sooo yes!)

For the past five and a half months, the same scene greets Sophronia when she steps outside: the mountainside, winter-grey, bristling with suffering silver pines, and the low slope of rocky hillside that constitutes her home and farm. Some mornings, a pall of thick snow suffocates the earth and muffles the world to a dead silence. Sometimes Eos dyes the woolly clouds of the horizon a dusky pink at dawn; by the afternoon, the sun is a cold discus thrown by Helios that briefly shines. Every day for those selfsame months, Sophronia’s goats and cow tiredly crop about for shoots of grass among the wrack, and every day their ribs grow as prominent as temple columns.  
  
In short, things haven’t been going well.  
  
But it’s the kind of _not going well_ that has predictability. Sophronia’s long resigned herself to it, making the best of a bad situation—if that’s a possibility. Because every day, she dresses herself, feeds Zoe and tucks her into a woolen sling Sophronia ties to her chest, and goes outside to the same rocks and unfeeling mountainside and starving animals, knowing that—at the very least—things will stay the same.  
  
Except today. Today does _not_ go the same.   
  
Today, Sophronia tucks Zoe into the sling, throws on her late husband’s old petasos, takes a step out into the biting air, and sees a dead man laying like a saddle over the back of the cow.  
  
That’s—  
  
Hm.  
  
Granted, only a handful of reactions would suit an event like this. One might scream and cry, or be an opportunist in a world reigned over by merciless gods and rifle through the man’s belongings for a drachma. One might even suspect that perhaps there’s a godly origin to the scene and seek the help of a local priest. Sophronia, however, promptly looks down at Zoe who looks back to her mother with her big, adoring eyes.  
  
“That’s new,” says Sophronia.  
  
“Mmmbbbb,” dribbles Zoe.  
  
If the gods sent a dead body on a cow’s back as an omen, they sent it to the wrong person. Sophronia is practical and—like the mountainside she calls home—immovable, more like the Teumessian fox to Olympus’ Laelaps the hunting hound. What she sees is, in fact, a dead man on a cow, which is not where she wants a dead man to be as the cow looks inconvenienced and burying a dead body isn’t possible in frozen earth.   
  
Sophronia grimaces, adjusts the petasos’ brim, and weighs the options.  
  
“Getting enough stones to cover him is going to take at least half the morning,” she tells Zoe. “Could we get away with just rolling him down the hillside and leaving him for Markos to find?”  
  
 _Markos_ in this case being the hunter down the hill who is old, slightly blind, and not easy to scare.   
  
“Ebwuh,” Zoe advises, very sagely.   
  
“Right. He would probably stink in the spring thaw before Markos found him.” Classic conundrum, disposing a corpse. “What should we do about this?”  
  
A brisk wind clips off the mountain, causing Zoe to scrunch her face in chilly irritation.  
  
“I know,” Sophronia sighs. “Let’s just get it over with.”  
  
She crosses the short distance between the house and the cow, getting a better view of the inconvenient corpse. He’s dressed relatively well in a fine dark red chiton and a wool chlamys the color of cold embers. His hair is black and quite frankly a _mess_ (though that might be excused on the grounds of him being dead and on a cow). She can’t see any blood on him, the cow, or the ground, which hopefully means that flipping him over won’t be too gory. Still, there’s no way of telling how long he’s been on the cow, so it could be bad.  
  
Still, she needs her cow, and she doesn’t need a dead body, no matter what it looks like.   
  
Sophronia walks around the cow to take the dead man by the feet. He’s barefoot, and the soles of his feet look… burnt. Or possibly so dirty that they’re soot-colored. Either way, Sophronia grits her teeth and grabs him by the ankles while Zoe gives a supportive cheer of, “Abababa!” Then she counts to three and pulls hard.  
  
The dead man falls to the frozen ground with a pronounced _thump_ and—  
  
“ _Hnnghghh_ ,” says the corpse, mostly to the dirt under his face.  
  
Sophronia jerks back with a gasp, arms instinctively going up and around Zoe.  
  
The moment feels like it’s suspended, frozen in place like a cloud of breath in cold air. Like the same little clouds coming from the corpse-that-isn’t-a-corpse-after-all’s mouth. Sophronia stares, as though groaning and breathing is something corpses just happen to do when they feel inclined, or that the moment will pass and he’ll magically die again.   
  
His back rises and falls with breath, and as if to miserably comment on the whole thing, he gives another low, agonized, “ _Mrnghg,_ ” to the dirt.   
  
Thoughts of gathering stones, rolling bodies down hills, milking cows and goats, or doing anything productive promptly dissipate. Instead, Sophronia looks up the mountain like she half expects some trickster spirit to be perching there, grinning at her misfortune and expense. Then, she looks down at Zoe, who she has far more faith in. “Well,” Sophronia says.  
  
Zoe gives a one syllable hum in reply, followed by, “Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba!” which can mean anything in baby speak, but what Sophronia takes to mean something like, “We should probably bring him inside so he doesn’t die of the cold and we actually _would_ have to deal with a corpse.”   
  
“I don’t like that you’re right,” Sophronia replies, reaching up and patting down an unruly wisp of Zoe’s dark hair. “But you’re right. As usual.”  
  
Zoe hums like she knows it.  
  
It takes a good deal of body wrangling, grunting, and muffled cursing to pull the body into the house. More still to roll him onto a pile of uncarded wool, arranging him onto it so he appears to be sinking into a dirty, fluffy cloud. At this angle, at least, Sophronia can see his face, which is… sort of impressive, she supposes. He’d be considered handsome by agora standards, well-muscled and young. He’s also scuffed and scratched all over the place as though he’d rolled through a thicket prior to falling on the cow, and bruised like a soft fig. She can’t imagine he’s a farmer—merchant, maybe?   
  
Or criminal. She’s reserving the right to be suspicious.  
  
Regardless of what he is or _who_ he is, he’s here.  
  
In her house, where she lives. Alone. With an infant daughter.  
  
“Mother of Mnemosyne,” Sophronia breaths as she seats herself on the bag of grain across from her ill-starred guest. “What did we get ourselves into?”  
  
Zoe responds by hiccupping happily and drooling on the front of her mother’s chiton.

**Author's Note:**

> petasos - a wide-brimmed floppy hat
> 
> "the Teumessian fox to Olympus’ Laelaps the hunting hound" - the ancient Greek version of 'unstoppable force meets immovable object'
> 
> chlamys - a wool cloak usually worn while travelling or hunting
> 
> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)


End file.
